


while you're busy making other plans

by The_Lionheart



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-typical avatar behavior, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Fluff, Found Family LITERALLY, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jonah-typical identity weirdness, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, M/M, Martin has 2 dads now, Pre-Canon, Trans Jonah Magnus, Trans Martin Blackwood, spoilers through season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24738001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: Elias Bouchard had been the kind of person to ask himself why he felt angry, and what being angry would accomplish. Now Elias Bouchard is the kind of person to ask himself why he feels angry, and what being angry would accomplish.Elias Bouchard had been lonely. Elias Bouchard is unhappy to realize that he’s always been lonely.~ ~ ~ ~ ~out on the ocean sailing awayi can hardly waitto see you come of agebut i guess we'll both just have to be patient
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 94
Kudos: 157





	1. 1996

It’s a miserably gray day, raining and cold and foggy. The child who couldn’t stop crying is beside himself with grief and panic, having been sent to stand next to his mother’s car rather than be allowed to disrupt the proceedings at the funeral, the lowering of her father’s casket into the muddy hole. 

Elias isn’t sure why she bothered to send the child away. It’s only three or four meters - not far enough for his cries to not be heard - and there’s almost no one else here to be disturbed by it. The lack of any real number of family or friends is what brought Elias and Peter out to it, in fact. 

They’re… trying. He hasn’t been Elias long, but he wants to try again. Peter is indulging him, because Peter is surprisingly sentimental for a man who refused to keep any pictures of him when he was James, during or after their pair of dreadfully overwrought affairs. He’s different now, though. James had run hot and furious at the slightest touch. He’s always had a - a streak, yes, a tendency towards lashing out. He hadn’t been allowed to express it often as Jonah, and had… well, he had his own difficulties with it when he was Tobias, and Geoffrey, and Robert. And it was always so easy to let it slip out when he was James. 

But he’s Elias now, and Elias is… was calmer. Wanted people to get along. Wanted people to be quiet and listen, wanted to be quiet and listen to them. He’d known Elias wasn’t much of a fighter and certainly didn’t enjoy conflict, but it had been a surprise the first time he’d felt the rush of fury and then, just as quickly, felt himself cool, soothe it over. Elias Bouchard had been the kind of person to ask himself why he felt angry, and what being angry would accomplish. 

Now Elias Bouchard is the kind of person to ask himself why he feels angry, and what being angry would accomplish. It’s… an interesting change. 

He hasn’t told this to Peter yet. Peter’d only really known him well for six years as James, and in the course of their long lives that’s barely any time at all. Peter doesn’t need to know the reason for the change; Peter can just see the new face and know that there is a change, know that Elias is willing to work with him, to work for him, this time.

Elias Bouchard had been lonely. Elias Bouchard is unhappy to realize that he’s always been lonely. 

The child is lonely, too. That’s what draws both their attention, after the initial rush of finding some miserably empty gathering to watch. The child is lonely; the child is all the mother has left and she despises him.

 _She doesn’t deserve him,_ Elias thinks fiercely, and he isn’t sure who the thought comes from, but it is his. He’s already thought up a list of reasons why it will serve Peter if she doesn’t have the child, why it will serve Peter if they keep the child themselves, why it will serve the Eye and Elias’s own plans, but at the end of it… at the end of it, she has something she doesn’t deserve, and therefore he _wants_ it, and therefore it is, by definition, _his_.

“Hello,” Elias says, pulling away from Peter to stand in front of the child. The child flinches at being addressed, the various holes in his blotchy face running with a variety of liquids, confusion warring with his deep and terrible sadness. Elias digs a pristine handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, handing it to the child. “Here, wipe off that mess before you come along with me.”

“Wh-what?” the child squeaks, looking nervously over Elias’s shoulder at Peter, looking nervously to the side where his mother and the tiny group of other mourners are gathered.

“Your face,” Elias explains, “is wet with… goo. And salt water. It will stain the upholstery in my car.”

“Elias,” Peter says, sounding alarmed even as the boy cautiously dabs at his face. “What are you - what is this about? You’re not - not a child, I shouldn’t think, that’s, it’s-”

“Peter,” Elias says abruptly. “Do you want to Know what will happen to this child later, for having committed the sin of weeping at a loved one’s funeral?” 

He glances over his shoulder at Peter, whose face is a careful mask. He Knows, through Peter’s eyes, that the child is round-eyed and frightened. He Knows that the child is frightened, because People Aren’t Supposed To Know. He Knows that Peter thinks he had a better childhood than most, and stopped waking up with nightmares of being a child in Moorland House _years_ ago, and has never even considered bringing another child into the Lukas family. He Knows the child is about to turn and call out for his mother, so he turns back to face the leaky-faced little thing.

“You are afraid to go with a strange man,” he says abruptly. “Why?”

The child blinks, struggling to come to an answer for that. “Because… Mum said… that a man’d take me away, if I went with a stranger.” 

“And yet she sent you away, didn’t she?” Elias prods, and the boy sniffles down at his feet. “Well, if she didn’t want you to be taken away she shouldn’t have done that. Do you agree, Peter?”

“Well,” Peter says reluctantly, “it’s… certainly true that she doesn’t care if you stay or don’t. So I suppose in a way she must not want you to stay with her.” 

“Thank you, Peter.” Elias says. “This is Peter Lukas, by the way. My name is Elias Bouchard. And you are?”

The child stares at him, tugging on his pigtails. Well, they’ll simply have to go. Time passes too quickly - Elias really does want to make this go as quickly as he can - so he sighs and puts a hand on the boy’s head.

“Peter, this young man is named Martin Blackwood,” he says, and the child’s eyes go round as dinner plates. Elias tilts his head. “Isn’t that right?”

The little boy nods, dazzled by the fact that Elias knows, that Elias _could_ know a name that he’s only ever thought to himself in the privacy of his mind.

“Well, if he’s coming with us he’ll be Martin Lukas,” Peter says, after a moment, and Elias shoots him a murderous glare. “Oh, you’re not serious, are you? There’s… there’s room at Moorland, they probably wouldn’t even notice a new boy. Just put him in the lineup for tutors and maids, he’ll fit in soon enough.”

“He’s coming with me, and your involvement is-” Elias exhales slowly. The Elias in his head is patient, amused, wants to know how someone who can wait two centuries between attempts at his Ritual could be so impatient with everything else that he wants. The Elias that he _is_ tries again. “Peter. I’m doing this, but I… want you to do it with me. That is all.”

Peter is shocked into silence. Or perhaps he is being agreeable. He’s not arguing anymore, which is the main goal, so Elias considers this a success.

The boy - Martin - timidly raises one soft, pale hand.

“Yes, Martin?” Elias asks, triumphant.

“Well - don’t I get to say if I - if I go with you or not?” he asks, and Elias and Peter both shoot each other mildly scandalized looks before turning back to him.

“No,” Elias says. “What a strange thing to think! No, of course not. You don’t belong to your mother, not any longer. You’re coming with us now and there isn’t much else you can do but behave yourself.”

Discomfort is coming off of Peter in palpable waves. “Elias, this isn’t… this isn’t….”

But if Peter can’t find a way to use words to explain what he doesn’t like or want about this, Elias will be forced to ignore his feelings until he can adequately explain them. Peter knows this, and he trails off, resigned. 

The boy is crying again. More from a fresh wave of grief and a feeling of deep alarm than anything else, but it won’t do. Elias considers him for a moment, glancing back at the gathered mourners. 

“Well, Peter, you’re going to have to carry him back to the car if young Martin proves unable to walk there himself,” Elias decides, which makes the boy cry harder, for some byzantine reason. At least Peter’s wild unhappiness with the idea of extended physical contact with another living being makes _some_ sense. Elias isn’t at all sure why the boy is so reluctant to come with them - his mother clearly dislikes him, and he can explicitly remember his own childhood, and how _he_ would have felt to be adopted off the streets by a wealthy gentleman. It was practically the greatest and most-enduring fantasy he’d had as a small child, himself. 

“Will you walk or will you be carried, Martin?” Elias asks, and Martin looks at his hand, and even without the Watcher feeding him pieces of the boy’s thoughts - a flurry of fleeting little things anyway, the young are deeply unnerving to See - Elias can guess what it is he wants. He presents his open palm to Martin. “Very well. I will hold your hand on the condition that you hold Peter’s with the sticky hand.”

Martin accepts, though he does not intuit which of his hands is the sticky one. It is deeply regrettable, but he catches Peter fighting not to smile for a second before he ducks his head and lets the expression fall away from his bearded face.

Peter hesitates - they walk for a few seconds in the cemetery - and then he must make up his mind to do as Elias has asked, because they take a few steps onto a cold, mist-strewn lawn. The pressure behind Elias’s eyes is terrifying. He’s sure he’ll never get used to it, and appreciates Peter for allowing him some small measure of what it feels to be afraid again, but after a moment he hears the boy whimper softly. 

Peter doesn’t notice. It is hard to reach him, here. Elias gives Martin’s hand a squeeze.

“Are you frightened, Martin?” he asks, and Martin nods up at him. Elias beams unsteadily at him, despite the pain in his skull. “Well, that proves it. You’re a very thoughtful and intelligent boy. You’re very right to be frightened. We’ve taken you somewhere that scares even us, you know.”

Martin’s eyebrows crawl up his forehead, and he turns to look up at Peter, to see if he’s afraid, too. 

“Peter, isn’t the Forsaken a frightening place?” Elias prompts, and after a moment Peter startles slightly, as if realizing they’re with him for the first time. 

“It… yes, of course it’s frightening,” Peter says cautiously, then frowns. “Aren’t you frightened, Martin?”

The child’s hands tighten, refusing to let either of them go as he thinks. 

“My word, is it under debate?” Elias asks, but Martin nods shyly. “Oh, well. There it is. We’re all three very sensible, so we’re all three frightened.”

“Elias, please be quiet,” Peter breathes out, furrowing his brow. “You’re too loud by far.” 

“I’m sure your headache will go away faster if you take us straight to my place,” Elias suggests, and Peter’s gaze crawls over to him without any real heat or weight behind it, before wandering off. Elias’s eyes water; a faint glow behind them catches on the readers that Elias wore before the Change, and the light is just distracting enough to compound his headache. He doesn’t know, now, that this was the best thing he could have done - he wanted it, yes, he wanted the child and Elias agreed with himself that he couldn’t do any worse than the child’s mother would - Zofia Blackwood, the distant but still-present Eye whispers, with a series of flashing images that Elias-who-once-was would have shied away from and that Elias-who-is knows Peter will be upset by - and he’d wanted the child, and that’s all the justification he should have needed to take the boy with him. 

He’d wanted him. He’d come to some barren funeral with a man he’d have liked to call his husband because he was tired of pushing him away and of being pushed away. He’d allowed himself a brief fantasy - perhaps even a foolish fantasy - of Peter forswearing his god and his emptiness, of Peter belonging to him and only him, of Peter choosing to step down from his position to be caught in Elias’s teeth. He hadn’t even had time to build a structure of it - a child, lost and lonely and unwanted, tying Peter to him - and perhaps he could have made something stupid and soppy of it, with time. But then there was a boy who had nothing else, and Elias had been, momentarily, furious at the idea of that woman having something he wanted. 

The fog is making it hard to think, and the pain behind his eyes is making it worse. Is this even a worthwhile idea? Won’t he lose interest once he realizes that Peter has no interest in caring for a human child, and even less interest in humoring Elias and his ridiculous whims? Shouldn’t he let go, let Peter take the boy out of the Forsaken and lie down for a bit and allow himself to be eaten alive, the way he’d allowed Barnabas to be eaten alive?

There is a very small and very sticky hand in his. It tugs on his hand a little, and he opens his eyes to peer miserably down at a little boy in the fog. Martin peers miserably back up at him. He supposes misery does, in fact, love company. 

“Almost there,” Peter murmurs, and then his heels land not on the crunch of some gravelly sand but on a thick rug. There is very little grey in Elias’s flat, and the fog burns itself away out of sheer embarrassment to be seen. The foyer is all dark wood and glossy lacquer and polished brass. Elias breathes in and out a few times, his headache entirely gone as he reaches for the comfort of the Eye.

“Getting harder to take you, you know,” Peter says quietly. There is still a very small and sticky hand in his. 

“I’m sure I don’t know why,” Elias says, a touch waspishly. This is untrue. The Forsaken dislikes his connection to Peter. If this is successful - this, this _endeavor_ with the boy - it’s going to devour him before he makes two steps into it, next time Peter takes him. Peter doesn’t look at him. 

“How did we get here?” Martin asks, a quiver in his voice.

“We walked,” Peter says quietly.

“Yes, you were awake the whole time and walked yourself,” Elias says briskly. “Well done.” Martin gazes up at them, red-eyed and puffy-faced, and clearly expects to be told what to do. Elias looks over at Peter, who is in the process of trying to figure out a way to remove his hand from the boy’s grip without experiencing anything else like an interaction today.

“Well, Martin,” Elias says, and the boy’s eyes focus on him. His eyes are the same rich brown as the walnut chest standing against the foyer wall. It would be a shame to replace them with the tinny gray of Elias’s eyes, wouldn’t it? But there is a keenness there, and Elias wonders what it would be like, to build an avatar for the Beholding. From scratch, practically.

“There is a maid,” Elias says, “and she could be persuaded to cook a meal for you if you ask nicely. I don’t suppose you’re hungry for anything in particular?”

Martin shrugs, blinking back a fresh wave of tears, and Elias sees another half-dozen flashes of Zofia Blackwood, mostly in a kitchen, none of them pleasant. He frowns slightly, and the boy freezes - ah. The boy thinks he is frowning because of his indecision. 

“Well, I will have her make you some sort of… hearty soup, or something,” Elias tells him. “Come, release Peter at once and I’ll show you to your room. It is not decorated to a child’s tastes, but I assume you will present me with your list of demands soon enough, eh?”

Peter grimaces and turns to stand stock-still, facing the wall, as Elias coaxes the bewildered child upstairs. The guest room has an en-suite, so he supposes that will serve the boy’s needs well enough. Elias checks periodically on Peter as he explains that the boy should absolutely never go into certain rooms. Largely, he would like to see how deeply curiosity pulls Martin towards them, though he does hope that enough time would pass before Martin attempts to sneak in that he’ll have a chance to remove any overly dangerous books from his library. 

He leaves Martin with the admonishment that they’ll likely have to find some way to entertain and educate him before the week is out, then returns to the downstairs foyer.

Peter is still standing, motionless, facing the wall. Elias would have reached out to grasp his arm, when he was James. He doesn’t know if that’s what Peter wants, now, and he wants Peter to want it. Elias clears his throat.

“A thanks are in order, I think,” he says, and Peter huffs a faint little chuckle. “For your assistance. I… I was hoping you would stay a while.” 

The fog curls faintly out of Peter’s boots, and up under the back of his jacket collar.

“Why?” Peter asks softly. “Got something to fill up your time, now, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to have to dig through you to find out what you’re thinking,” Elias says, and the Elias inside him agrees. “Are you asking me why I want you to be near me? Why I want you to be here? Why I would want you to do this with me?”

“No,” Peter says, turning to look at him. “I want to know what you want a child for, if this is - if this is some-” 

Peter can’t bring himself to say the words. Peter can’t bring himself to think the words. Elias catches only a flash or two - Peter is good at hiding, even from his own thoughts - cold, questing hands, the shuddering loneliness of a child who doesn’t have anyone to tell - and he wishes, with a deepness that goes back through to when he was just and only Jonah, that he could operate his Institute without the funding of the Lukas family, that he could get away with burning Moorland House to the ground without the threat of the fog rising up to take his Institute down with it. 

“Peter,” Elias says, very stiffly. “I assure you I want no part of… any untoward behavior towards this child. I want…” But there is no easy way to say what it is he wants, not without flaying himself alive, not without letting himself be Known to Peter. “If you do not wish to assist me in his upbringing, I will accept your decision. If you wish me to put him back in the… care of his mother, I will do so.”

Peter winces at that, as Elias expected he might. Elias takes a small step closer. If Peter tells him to put Martin back he thinks he might obey; or he might not, and tell Peter to leave, that he doesn’t need help to do this sort of thing; or he might not, and tell Peter to leave, that he doesn’t want Peter in his home for any amount of time. 

Elias Bouchard is not a man accustomed to waiting, and listening, and allowing someone else to make a decision before reacting to it. Elias Bouchard is now a man who is prepared to wait, and listen, and allow Peter to decide before he reacts to Peter’s decision. 

Peter raises his head, looking over his shoulder at Elias. He doesn’t quite trust Elias not to hurt him. He doesn’t quite trust Elias not to do something unforgivable to the child. He’s utterly correct, and Elias doesn’t want him to be correct. Elias isn’t sure which Elias wants Peter to trust him. In time, he thinks, he will forget what it feels like to be _both_ Eliases, the same way he forgot how to be both Jameses and both Roberts and both Geoffreys and Tobiases, but right now he wants nothing more than to make himself something other than what Peter must think of him.

“I’ve never been around any children,” Peter says flatly. Elias knows this is true. Peter’s only met his siblings a handful of times in total, and before Martin today he has never spoken to one. 

“Well, they turn into adults, how different could they be?” Elias asks, and Peter’s mouth tugs slightly at one corner, and he rolls his eyes a bit. “We could… we could make a wager of it. If that helps.”

“I don’t know that it would,” Peter says, which Elias pretends not to hear. 

“Do you want to know the terms of this wager, Peter?” Elias asks, and the fog dissipates, and Peter turns to face him, putting his hands in his pockets.

“I’m sure you’ll tell me when I’ve lost, Elias,” Peter says simply, then gives him a weary smile. “I think I could also put away some soup. Please talk to that maid of yours, and I’ll… I suppose I’ll do what I’m told, won’t I?”

“In that case, you’ll be making the arrangements to have some clothing and… books and toys sent here,” Elias says, and Peter wrinkles his nose at having to speak to yet another human being today, but he goes to the office to make the necessary phone calls. 

Peter and Martin eat soup from bowls that Elias hadn’t realized he still owns, and Elias watches them. Peter and Martin go to sleep in separate guest suites, and Elias, awake in his bed, Watches them then, too.


	2. Breakfast

Peter doesn’t come out of his normal guest room in the morning, but Elias can See that he’s still in there, lying awake in bed and gazing blankly at the ceiling, so he’s not too worried. Elias gets dressed, and then, as an afterthought, thinks to glance into the room where the boy is staying-

-and he isn’t there. Elias experiences a thrill of - of what might be panic? He’s not sure. He casts about until his Gaze falls into the boy’s eyes, and then he has to pause, because the boy is in the kitchen. There is no sign of Mary, but maids do have to go home these days, and she hasn’t come in yet. The boy is doing things to various appliances. Elias doesn’t like it.

He gets up out of bed, ignoring the vague faintness in his head and limbs, and pulls a thick, embroidered robe over his pyjamas - silk, a somewhat crass but very comfortable gift from Annabelle to celebrate his new body - before stepping into a pair of house slippers. He does not shout, though he does flicker into various eyes in the kitchen here and there on the walk downstairs, mostly to keep watch on the baffling ritual taking place. The boy appears to be making a small mound of toast, and a kettle of water, presumably for tea. Elias feels… certain he must be too small to be doing either of these things. Is he? 

The Eye is no help. Some would say he is and some would say he isn’t, and the boy’s been doing this sort of thing for a long time already, so he fully believes that he’s doing the correct thing. 

Elias clears his throat once he’s in the doorway to the kitchen, and the boy jumps. He’s wearing the thin, lace-edged socks he was wearing yesterday, and a knee-length t-shirt that Peter had handed to him last night in lieu of a nightdress. It used to belong to Elias. Elias is… surprised that it’s still here, among his things. Mary must have found it and cleaned it and put it in a guest drawer - ah, no, Elias realizes, she did find and clean it, but she’d put it into Elias’s things, and Peter had found it and decided that it wasn’t something they should have in the sock drawer. 

The shirt is faded former-black and announces **GRATEFUL DEAD** across the middle, and it makes Elias deeply uncomfortable to see, and it leaves an odd, wistful twist of grief in Elias’s chest. Some sort of music thing, he tells himself. Not a sign or portent or omen. Elias could have explained it better, before the Change. It’s harmless.

“That’s six slices of toast,” Elias says, and the boy gives him a wide-eyed nod. “Are you… very hungry? It’s quite early.”

“Made breakfast,” Martin says. “If - if you want me to make more, I-”

“God, no. That’s more than enough for…” Elias pauses. “If you’re that hungry I ought to see about providing you with a source of protein. Growing boy appetite and all.”

“What?” Martin looks… perplexed, and frightened, though of what, Elias couldn’t know and does not with to. “No, it - it’s for you and for, um, Peter, as well. All three of us.”

Elias looks at the pile of toast, and realizes he does not want to eat any toast, and that this child has allotted him not one but two of these slices. He thinks he might be able to convince Peter to eat a third slice, but that still leaves him a slice to nibble publicly. He wonders if he might be able to appeal to the boy’s hunger and convince him to eat Elias’s toast, and realizes that the boy does not particularly like toast, it’s just something he knows he can reliably make every morning.

“Today we will eat this… toast,” Elias says. “Tomorrow, you and I will conduct a series of experiments in the realm of cold cereals.” Martin frowns and blinks, and Elias is moved to add, “Peter does not know how to prepare himself breakfast, and the sooner we teach him, the sooner we’ll have him making our breakfasts.”

Well. Martin’s breakfast. Elias has no interest in waking up before this early-riser of a child.

Martin’s frown deepens, and Elias sighs, fetching a pair of mugs from a cabinet that only gives him a small amount of trouble. He really should move more of his things to a lower shelf, now that he’s in Elias Bouchard’s somewhat diminutive body. James had been tall. James had never had trouble reaching for anything. He enjoys being Elias, for the most part, even if it is taking some getting used to. 

“It will be some time before Peter comes in,” he tells Martin. “So there’s little point in making his tea now. He will have to comfort himself with the notion of cold toast.” Elias pours the tea for the two of them, a flash of worry that the boy would accidentally pour boiling water on himself, a flash - courtesy of the Eye - of Zofia Blackwood, eyes burning with fury, holding a steaming kettle in one hand. Elias presses his mouth into a line. The boy is  _ his, _ and it upsets him to think that he might be marked - even accidentally - by the Desolation. 

He suspects this is information that would upset Peter. He decides to decide later if it’s something Peter should know. 

“There are two small glass jars,” Elias says, quietly. “Orange marmalade and fig jam. They’re inside the refrigerator. Is that something you would like to try on your toast?”

Martin thinks, then nods, before realizing that he is behind Elias. “Y-yes. Please.”

“Alright. Go on and fetch them, Martin,” Elias says, and the boy scampers to do so. He does not tell the boy where they are, but Martin seems to understand well enough. No hidden talent in the Eye or anything to that effect; he’s just an observant boy, used to having a very short amount of time to obey adults before something bad happens to him. Elias doesn’t like that, either. Does that fear fall adequately under the mindless and ever-present violence of the Slaughter? Should he take extra precautions to guard against Martin’s fear of-

-no. He will simply refuse to draw attention to it. 

Martin comes back with the jams cradled against his shirt, and Elias takes out a large, sharp boning knife. He’s never used it for anything, in any of his lives, but it’s good to know what a tool is for even as one uses it for another use entirely. 

“What’s that for?” Martin asks, and Elias gives him a bright smile.

“Well, traditionally, it is for slicing into animal carcasses, and carving the meat from the bones,” Elias tells him. “However, I do not intend to use it for this purpose. No, indeed.” He points the long, narrow blade of the knife towards the jar of fig jam. “Are you able to open that?”

“Um-” Martin tries, a few times, but his tiny hands are too weak and soft to wrest the lid free. He shoots Elias a panicked look, and Elias puts the knife down.

“Well, I suppose when you’re a bit older it will be easier,” he says, holding out his hand to take the jar himself. It takes… a number of attempts, for him to open the jar himself, and he’s quite aware that Martin is trying not to grin behind his hands at the amount of time it is taking for him to get it open. Luckily, Elias’s robe is textured enough for him to get a decent grip on the jar lid, and he opens it with a small flourish before reaching over to do the same to the orange marmalade.

“There we go,” he says, and picks up the knife. “Pass me a slice, if you please. Fig or orange? You’ve never had anything with fig in it. Fig?”

“Fig,” Martin agrees, and Elias dips the knife into the jar and begins spreading the jam around three of the slices of toast. He quickly wipes any excess jam into the jar - allowing, alas, some small amount of breadcrumbs to find their way inside as well - before getting to work on the marmalade.

Martin watches him the whole time, unsure of what to expect from him. Elias gives him a solemn glance.

“I will use this knife for one more thing,” he announces. “This is also not truly part of the intended use.”

He slices each piece of toast into quarters, cutting diagonally to achieve triangles. He doesn’t particularly enjoy eating things, shapes or no, but it seems to be an observable fact that children enjoy triangle-shaped breadstuffs, and it may inspire Martin to eat most of the toast himself. The Eye has no objections to this. 

He hands a triangle of toast, coated with fig jam, to Martin, who accepts it with an appropriate early-morning gravitas. Martin watches him attentively, and Elias realizes with a growing dismay that he is expected to eat a triangle in tandem with the boy. Elias gingerly selects a bit of toast - cursing himself for having made sure they were all of equal size - and bites down into it. The fig jam is very sweet and a bit overfull of seeds. Visibly relieved, Martin begins eating his own toast, making a thoughtful face as he considers the texture and flavor.

“It’s a bit sweet,” Elias offers. Martin nods. “It might do well paired with a brie.”

“What’s a brie?” Martin asks, and Elias points at his toast until he puts the rest of it in his mouth. 

“Brie is a type of soft cheese. Peter is fond of it, in fact,” Elias says, and Martin stares at him, soaking the information in, chewing slowly. Elias considers it a point in favor of the boy being one for the Beholding. “I will endeavor to have you sample it before the week is out.”

Elias hands him a triangle coated with orange marmalade, and suffers the process of eating one for himself while the boy watches and eats his own. For the sake of completion, he also presses a pair of opposing triangles into a fig-and-orange jam sandwich, and Martin nibbles this while he proceeds to prepare tea for the two of them. Martin actually does like tea, but Elias is quite sure that he could be convinced to experiment with how he takes it. 

Elias hands Martin his tea - a little sweet, very milky, not quite right for the boy but a good enough counterpoint to the cloying sweetness of the jams - and sips his own - black and very sugary. 

“Eat a bit more, drink your tea, and I’ll go see if any of the deliveries have come yet,” Elias says, and Martin nods. He’s a good child. Obedient. Martin does not ask what the deliveries are for, because he remembers overhearing Elias and Peter discuss him last night - ear pressed to his new bedroom door, certain that he was going to be made miserable - and he knows that the deliveries are for his own new sets of clothing and books. Elias is doubly pleased with his choice.

Elias Bouchard had never been around many children in his short life. He’d gone to a private school, had been miserable and isolated, had been denied the comfort of knowing other children who knew him, and had found… other ways of finding comfort. Elias remembers choosing Elias Bouchard because so few people would have been able to tell the difference between the Elias-who-was and the Elias-who-is. He remembers his own life, long and storied but - pressingly - also devoid of children. He’d been his father’s only child; he’d never thought of having his own children or of being a presence in any of his friends’ children. 

He’s pleased to discover that it’s not so difficult to be near a child as he’d thought. 

Mary comes in to meet him, a cardboard box in her weathered hands and a steely glint in her eye. 

“You’re early, Mary,” Elias says, pleased, and she thrusts the box toward him until he catches it in his hands. It seems to be entirely clothing. Elias would like to know what they look like, but the part of him that remembers being the person he used to be is delighted at the idea of a surprise, so he turns the Eye’s gaze elsewhere. “You seem to be under the impression that there’s something foul afoot with regards to the boy, Martin.”

“Do I?” she asks, her tone icy. It would have never been allowed, when he was Jonah, but he finds that he likes it, and it would be impossible to train a new maid into the amount of fearsome competency that his day-to-day life requires. She was there for James, and had accepted who and what he was, and had accepted that he was now Elias. He finds it would be difficult to replace her at all, and is not looking forward to the inevitability of her mortality. 

“There is nothing untoward, I assure you,” Elias says. “Young Martin has no real family to speak of, and Peter and I have decided to raise him as our own.”

Mary’s grey eyebrows shoot up the length of her forehead in a combination of alarm and suspicion. 

“Mister Bouchard,” she says, quite sternly. “You do not mean to attempt to deceive an old woman into thinking you happened upon a wandering orphan and that the two of you were moved to enjoy the labor of parenthood purely for the child’s sake,  _ I am sure.” _

“I would never dream of deceiving you,” Elias lies, smiling. She is unmoved by his charm. He normally enjoys that about her. “Regardless. Martin will be living here from this point forward. I shall be drawing up the documents necessary to legally recognize him as my son and heir-”

He immediately senses his mistake. She knows that he was James, and that he is now Elias. In a distant way, he even appreciates that Mary - as mildly fond of him as she is, as deeply loyal to him as she is - would snap every bone in his body if she knew he was planning to step into Martin’s skin and life the way he did with Elias, James, Richard, Geoffrey-

“I am not raising him as a replacement,” Elias says. Her eyes narrow, but she knows that he Knows that this was what she’d started to think. “I am - I want a son, Mary. Now I have one. That is all.”

She is still suspicious, but she knows him well enough to know when he is being at least somewhat truthful. It’d be hard not to, after knowing him more than twenty years. The thought that she’d suspect him of using Martin in such a way disquiets and upsets him, even though he did briefly contemplate it, before. He wishes Peter were out of bed and here to distract her; she likes Peter, likes to see when he’s around, privately thinks that it’s good for Peter to have company and that it’s good for Elias to have someone to care for. She feels this way because she has never been witness to who and what they are together. 

Elias feels suddenly weary, and he shifts the box of clothing in his arms. He wishes Peter were here to carry it for him. He is not sure which part of him it is that wants her to be proven right about what he and Peter are to each other. He’s always hated the idea of being predictable, regardless of the outcome. Perhaps that’s it. 

“Mary, I’ll be presenting you with an updated grocery list today,” he says, and she does not receive this with any amount of surprise. With Peter and Martin staying, both of them with more human needs, mealtimes are about to become more of a daily occurrence in this house. She is very sensible. He wishes, suddenly, that he’d done something, pulled some strings in the right places, to have replaced Gertrude with the woman before him. 

An Archivist could live forever if it wanted, if its Archives weren’t destroyed outright or stolen from it. 

Mary would never have allowed him to place her in such a role, and Gertrude is doing a fine enough job on her own of thwarting the Rituals. He supposes he just has to accept it.

“Mister Bouchard,” Mary says evenly. “You must know this will be more than filling out the necessary paperwork and buying things to accommodate the material needs of a human child, don’t you?”

Elias stares blankly at her, befuddled for just a moment. He Gazes into her to suss out her meaning, but she has no masked intention within her words, and he’s not sure what to make of such a statement. 

“Mary,” he says finally. “This is a personal matter. Your input is not required at this time.” Then, because he’s sure she deserves it and he isn’t sure why, he adds, “Thank you.”

She thinks he is a fool, and possibly a danger to the child - and, certainly, to himself. But she is loyal and she is as obedient as she wants to be and she is, in her own way, fond of him as a person. He doesn’t know what he’ll do when she’s dead. 

Mary sniffs and sweeps past him to begin preparing for her workday. He goes to put the clothing in Martin’s room, and returns to the kitchen to find Peter sipping lukewarm tea and eyeing Martin and his plate of artfully arranged triangles with some dismay. 

“Peter, do eat your breakfast,” Elias says, and Peter jumps slightly at having been addressed. Normally it amuses Elias a little, to see him in such a state, but Martin had done the same thing, today. Elias bites back a thousand things he could say, and instead offers a quiet, “My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Peter blinks at him, then looks down at his tea. 

“I’m sure you didn’t,” he murmurs, without any real heat. He glances nervously at Martin, who - luckily - is not currently eyeing him. It’s a vaguely upsetting dance, to see the way they attempt to observe one another without acknowledging that they, themselves, are being observed. 

“Martin, your new clothing has been delivered. Once you’re finished eating, you may go and get dressed for the day. Please be sure to thank Peter for making the arrangements,” Elias adds, and Martin sits up straight in his seat.

“Thank you, Peter,” Martin says dutifully, and Peter’s face and ears go pink with humiliation at being addressed by name twice in as many minutes. Martin quickly finishes off the toast he’d been eating, downs the rest of his tea, and hops down. He starts towards the door - and then, Elias realizes with a faint, unnamed feeling that could be dismay, he turns to offer affection,  _ physically. _ Martin doesn’t know if it will be received or accepted or returned; he just desperately wants it to be.

Elias prepares himself for the waist-height hug. Martin collides with his torso, and Elias elects to put a narrow arm around Martin’s shoulders, using his other hand to gingerly pat the boy’s head exactly once. He needs a haircut, still. 

“Thank you, for, for tea. A-and jam,” Martin says, all in a rush, worried that he won’t have time to get all of it out before he’s pushed away. Elias nods and glances over at Peter, who is wide-eyed with horror and alarm at realizing that this lies in his fate, as well. 

Elias clears his throat and gives Martin a second pat to the head. “The morning is growing long and the maid has returned, Martin. It’s time to get dressed, for the sake of decency as well as for your own sake. Go on upstairs, now.”

Martin gives him a shy smile in parting, and scurries upstairs to his room. Elias Watches him as he watches Peter, hunched and clutching at his mostly-empty tea. 

“This was a mistake,” Peter whispers.

“I rarely make mistakes,” Elias tells him, and Peter almost rises to the bait, the offered olive branch of admitting that he makes any mistakes, at all, ever. Peter doesn’t meet his eyes. 

“Why are we doing this, Elias?” Peter asks, and Elias does not move closer, does not even extend a hand, because it is important to him now - today - not to frighten Peter. “Not… not with the boy. I - why are you and I…?”

“Because we want to,” Elias says, and Peter raises his eyes at that, pale and fog-grey. “What other reason would we need? Not everything you or I must do need be at the behest of our gods. We’re not the Mother’s. You can choose-”

_ “You  _ can choose,” Peter says, and it cuts through something Elias hadn’t known was between them. “You choose. You chose. Why do you and I do this? Why have I let you drag me back into this? Why did you pick up a boy off the street? Why would you  _ do _ that to me?”

“I’ve done nothing to you,” Elias says sharply. “You want this as much as I do. More, sometimes. You love-”

“Elias, stop,” Peter says, his voice ragged. “Stop Knowing me.”

“-you don’t want this to end, Peter, and how could you? You’ve never had anything like this, you’ve never had anyone who wanted you, you want to be wanted,” Elias hisses. “I am doing this  _ for  _ you. I am doing this for us. We’re going to fix this - this broken thing, this wreck between us, this is going to  _ fix  _ us, Peter-”

“Oh Elias,” Peter says, injecting enough of his starkly false charm into his voice to set Elias’s teeth on edge. The cold smile on Peter’s face feels like a slap; fog is stretching up out of his corners, a threat already on its way to being delivered. “There’s no fixing  _ you, _ though, is there?”

“Don’t do this,” Elias tells him. He doesn’t beg. He’s never begged Peter for anything. “Not now. Not - don’t - Peter, you can’t-”

“I need to go,” Peter says, sounding faint, sounding like a man on his deathbed, sounding eerily like his great-great-grandfather did on his. “I need to go. I can’t stay here. It’s… it’s too loud.”

Elias watches him go. He doesn’t beg, he’s never begged Peter for anything, and he won’t be starting anytime soon. 


	3. Mariel

Martin does not seem to fully believe Elias when he asserts that Peter has gone to work, and will likely be away for some time due to the nature of his job as a sea-captain. Elias watches the carefully blank expression on his face, and then sighs.

“It seems like you don’t believe me,” he suggests. “I’m having some amount of difficulty gleaning your thoughts, Martin. Will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

Martin is not compelled in any way, so the boy considers this for a bit before answering. It gives Elias a moment to appreciate the fact that Peter had essentially arranged for the purchase of very small versions of his usual attire. In fact, Elias is almost entirely certain that the boy’s navy slacks and black turtleneck are just a scaled-down make of Peter’s usual casualwear. Even the tiny cream-colored Aran cardigan with its round wooden buttons makes the boy look like a very small, curly-haired and befreckled Peter. 

“Peter doesn't look like a sea-captain,” he says finally, and Elias sits carefully down on the edge of a long sofa, facing Martin’s spot. The boy is curled up on an armchair with a book, which is surely proof that he should have always been Elias’s. “He looks… normal?”

“Sea-captains don’t tend to look visibly abnormal,” Elias tells him, and Martin’s face scrunches a bit. “What do you expect to see when meeting a sea-captain, though?”

“The big long coat and a hat and a beard,” Martin says, then brightens up. “He does have a beard.”

“He does,” Elias agrees. He drums his fingers on his knee. “When Peter gets back, we might ask him to show us his ship. It’s called the  _ Tundra _ .”

“A tundra is a flat, treeless plain,” Martin says cheerfully. “And it’s got permafrost.”

“You’re right,” Elias says, tilting his head. “Did you learn about that in school?”

“Sort of,” Martin explains. “They have Encarta at my school. I like to go in the computer labs on my lunch and play Mindmaze.”

Elias casts about through the Beholding for information on this  _ Encarta _ and  _ Mindmaze _ , and it seems mostly like a harmless coincidence. Not the first of these unsettling little coincidences, but it doesn’t seem to bear any weight. Still, he’ll take the boy’s interest as yet another point in favor of Martin growing into the Beholding’s power one day. Elias gives him a nod.

“This sounds very informative and entertaining, then. I shall update my study,” he says, and Martin gives him a polite glance over his book. “You will have a personal computer here, and your beloved Encarta. I presume you’ll be working on mastering its use whilst I do my own work.”

“Okay,” Martin says, before cautiously adding a quiet, “thank you, Elias.”

“At any rate, Peter’s ship is named the _ Tundra _ , and he can be gone for weeks or months at a stretch, so I don’t want you to be alarmed. This is merely a temporary separation, and he will be back,” Elias adds, and Martin gives him a look that - that on an adult, would be filled with pity. Elias does not wish to dwell on why an eight-year-old knows what pity is, or that he would know that his statement might be false. Elias raises his eyebrow at him. “You don’t think so, Martin?”

Martin fidgets with his book, before lowering it and looking at Elias with a worrisome, jagged expression on his young face. Elias casts a single thread of the Watcher’s gaze into him, to dispel whatever shyness might hold his tongue.

“Well, it’s not… I don’t think you’re wrong or, or anything,” Martin says, before the rest of his sentence comes rushing out, “it’s just that Mum said that the first day after Dad went, but Dad didn’t come back. Maybe Peter - maybe he won’t come back.”

Martin turns scarlet, and shrinks even further into the chair. Elias blinks at him, then glances at the clock on the wall. It’s an antique, probably. He bought it for himself while he was Richard. Richard’s entire lifetime had been solitary; there was always much to do and very few people whose presence would offer respite, then. 

“Well, Peter is known to me,” he says finally. “I know Peter  _ better  _ than your mother knows your father, I would say. Peter always comes back.”

“Oh,” Martin says from behind his open book. Elias gestures a little at him, and he tilts his head a bit.

“Where did you get that book?” he asks, and Martin points at a little-used shelf. Elias purses his lips, reaching for the Knowledge of it, but it seems to be merely a handsomely-bound book of poems. Barnabas had given him a copy when it first printed, but that one is located safe in his office at the Institute. Elias does not detect any sign of greater forces bound within it, and is amazed to feel himself relax minutely. “Which poem are you on now?”

“The Eve of St. Agnes,” Martin reads dutifully, then pauses. “What’s a beadsman?”

“A sort of a servant whose job it was to pray for various people,” Elias says, and Martin looks down at the stanza again, nodding thoughtfully. “When I was growing up, they were also a sort of official beggar. They wore blue robes and pewter badges, and were officially praying for the welfare of the King and our country. There aren’t any more, though. The last one died eight years ago.”

“Oh,” Martin says, looking down at the poem again, before looking back at Elias, some childish worry flitting about his round face. “Right after I was born?”

“Well, about seven months after you were born, yes, but there is no connection between those events,” Elias says, and Martin seems reassured by this. “I always thought they were an odd institution to begin with, but I was used to seeing them about the place when I was a boy like you.”

Martin’s eyes flash over to Elias’s face, unsure, hopeful, puzzled. Elias smiles blandly at him, betraying nothing.

“Let me know if there are any other words you’re unfamiliar with,” he suggests, and Martin brightens again, nodding. 

“What does  _ supine  _ mean?” Martin asks, and Elias presses his fingers against his mouth.

“I think it will need a bit of context,” he says finally. “Come show me the line so I can see what it means in the sentence.”

Martin clambers off of the chair and climbs onto the couch, just a few inches short of actually touching Elias. He opens the book again and taps one short, soft finger on the stanza in question. Elias pretends to skim the page as he Glances through the Eye for Peter, but he must still be in the fog. 

“It means, in this specific context, they’re to lie naked in their beds,” Elias says, and Martin makes a deeply scandalized little face at that. Elias prods gingerly at his thoughts - largely to see if he’s thinking anything clearly enough for the Watcher to Know - but Martin largely seems to be taken up with the memory of running his hands on the cable-knit patterns on his cardigan before he put it on, and with the thought of sitting there on the couch instead of in his chosen armchair. 

The boy seems to make up his mind, and settles in a bit, pulling the book over into his lap to continue reading. He’s a swift reader, but Elias is… a little surprised, when Martin reaches the end of his poem and reads it a second time. He reads every poem twice that way, and Elias wonders if perhaps he should look into arranging for other Keats collections to be brought to their home. 

Elias learns several things about his new - ward? son? he’ll have to make a decision on that point soon - over the course of the day. He learns that Martin does not like the pasta salad that Mary makes for lunch, because it is cold and slimy. He also learns that Martin will meekly eat the entire plate before him without complaint, because he doesn’t wish to be the focus of Mary’s ire for not enjoying the meal she made.

(Elias briskly announces, toward the end of lunch, that he would like Mary to refrain from making pasta salad in the future. He does not elaborate on what is wrong with the dish, since he does not attempt to partake. Martin looks visibly relieved.)

He learns that Martin is wary of being watched and followed, and does not seem keen on following Elias around, either. Martin largely tries to keep to himself and out of sight when possible, which does, sadly, make him a decent match for Peter. Elias will be sure to tell Peter when he comes back.

He learns that Martin frets quite a bit about being useful, and that this comes out in a distressing number of times Mary has to gently shoo the boy away from the kettle while she’s working. Finally, for lack of having anything better to do, Mary allows him to put away some cutlery and fold a couple of tea towels before letting him help with a couple of cups of tea. Mary secretly instructs him on how Elias takes it, which Elias approves of for several reasons.

He learns that Martin is not at all afraid of spiders. Elias detects a curious emissary of the Mother, poking into Martin’s room, and walks speedily upstairs to dispatch it. He prepares a small speech to calm the boy’s nerves, and finds that he doesn’t have to. Martin has his soft, small hands cupped around a large brown house-spider, and the spider  _ does  _ have the decency to look embarrassed as Elias narrows his eyes down at it. The spider’s legs spread out wider than Elias’s own hand, and frankly Elias has a hard time imagining it allowing itself to be coaxed into the boy’s tiny palm.

“You don’t seem to be worried,” Elias says, and Martin startles slightly, looking up. “Where did you find that?”

“He was on the window,” Martin explains, nervousness seeping into him where it hadn’t been before. “He wasn’t hurting anything.” The spider’s eyes gleam entreatingly at Elias. 

“No, not yet,” Elias agrees. “But if the spider hasn’t got anything important to add to our conversation, she’ll have to go back to her Mother.” 

“Spider babies eat their mums,” Martin says cheerfully. “How do you know it’s a girl spider?”

“I Know almost everything,” Elias replies, and Martin blinks at him. “This particular spider is the servant of an avatar of the Mother of Puppets, and I am not particularly impressed with its intrusion on my private home.”

“What’s her name?” Martin asks.

“The spider?” Elias confirms, and Martin nods. The spider in his hands curls up a little, making itself slightly smaller. “Typically spiders do not have names. Its master, Annabelle, has not chosen a name for it, due to it being a spider.”

“So  _ we  _ can name her,” Martin says brightly, and Elias gazes evenly at him. “Can we put her in a jar until Miss Annabelle comes by to take her home?”

“You may do this,  _ if  _ this is what you truly wish to do,” Elias says, glaring searchingly at the spider and at Martin but discerning no gleaming threads or compulsion on him. “What do you want to name the spider?”

“Mariel,” Martin says, then grins. “She’s in a book I like. She’s a mouse in the book, though, not a spider.”

“Would you prefer a pet mouse instead?” Elias tries, and Martin shakes his head. 

“I can take good care of Mariel until Miss Annabelle comes,” he says stubbornly, and Elias sighs. He’s sure young Miss Annabelle will come to retrieve her little servant at some point, so he goes and has Mary fetch a jar with a lid. Martin insists that a spider will want a leaf, and after a moment’s consult with Mary he accepts placing a bit of celery in the jar to appease the spider’s sense of decor.

Elias consoles himself with the knowledge that a lack of any sort of fear of the Web works well enough to prevent Martin from accidentally becoming marked by it. If Annabelle attempts anything through her little spy, Elias will be forced to take severe action against her, and he would rather not do that.

Martin sits at the dinner table with the jarred spider next to his plate of small roasted potatoes, steamed carrots, and breaded chicken cutlets. He waits and watches Elias intently, though Elias can’t be sure what it is he’s looking for, and eventually Elias just starts eating. The boy seems puzzled, but begins eating as well.

Elias seems sure that a public meal is meant to have more… discussion during. After all, this isn’t a dinner with Peter. He waits until Martin’s mouth isn’t full before asking him a question.

“Would you like to go to a school, or would you prefer a private tutor?” he asks. Martin shrugs and pokes at a carrot with his fork. “A private tutor would likely be more convenient than anything else, at this point. There may be some temporary stickiness regarding the legality of enrolling you in a school right this moment.”

“Private tutor then,” Martin responds. Elias waits to see if he will add anything else, but the boy fits a couple of carrots into his mouth and begins the arduous process of chewing. 

“Well, then, it’s settled,” Elias offers. “It may be some days before it can be arranged, but I’m sure you will keep up with your studies until then. It gives us time to have your hair cut and to arrange for the arrival of the Encarta disc.” 

“Mm,” Martin agrees. Mariel, spider that she is, does nothing to clarify this. 

“This is just as well,” Elias adds, and Martin gives him a polite look over the table. “I didn’t attend school as a child. I was taught by a tutor for a time, and then largely became an autodidact once I had access to a decently-sized library.”

He watches Martin puzzle out the meaning of the word autodidact from context. 

“It means, for the most part, that I taught myself,” Elias clarifies, and Martin nods, satisfied with his own guesses. “When you seek out information for the sake of learning, you  _ also  _ become an autodidact.”

“Oh,” Martin says with a pleased little smile, sitting up a bit in his chair. Elias hopes Annabelle is disappointed by how readily the boy takes to being one of the Eye’s. The rest of their meal passes without incident, and Martin picks out another book -  _ Bleak House, _ which is not what Elias would have chosen for the boy - before curling up in the chair he’d taken earlier in the day. Somewhat unfortunately, he seems to think Mariel needs constant supervision, and carries the jar room to room.

Elias enjoys perhaps an hour or two of companionable silence with the boy, broken only by Mary’s cautiously hopeful farewell. It gives him a chance to compose a few office memos for the coming week as well as a draft for an opening speech at a museum fundraiser that he’s expected to give come November. There is a quiet rustle; Elias finishes the line he’s on before raising his eyes to meet Martin’s gaze. Martin is hugging his doorstopper of a novel to his chest, eyes intent on Elias’s face.

“What are you writing?” he asks, and after a moment Elias shows him his page. “That’s not cursive, is it?”

“It’s not. I’m using Taylor shorthand to write down what I want to say. I’ll have a secretary type it in plain English later,” Elias informs him. “It’s a speech for a museum event. The museum is, in truth, only the setting for the event. A small archaeological society is benefiting from the fundraising, but it will likely yield interesting results in the search for historical examples of my work.”

“Oh,” Martin says, biting his lip. Elias supposes there’s a limit to how interesting a child would find this. “E-Elias?”

“Yes, Martin,” Elias prompts, and Martin inhales slowly.

“When am I going to go home?” he asks. 

“I thought we’d quite addressed this,” Elias tells him, folding his hands over the notepad in his lap. “You are home, Martin. This is where you live now.”

“No,” Martin says, his face reddening. “I want to go home to my Mum now. Mum needs me and I want to go  _ home. _ ”

“Martin,” Elias says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Your mother does not need you. You’re eight years old, for goodness’ sake. You are not now, nor have you ever been, in a position of responsibility for her care.” Martin sucks in a great breath of air; Elias, sensing an imminent shout, quickly adds, “And no, Martin, she doesn’t want you, either. I, on the other hand, do want you. This arrangement is for the best. Please be reasonable.”

Martin presses his mouth into a taut little line. Tears of hurt fury well up in his eyes, and - and Elias is baffled. The Elias he used to be recognizes that he has said something… not incorrect, no, but possibly something was worded badly. The Elias he is now would have thought the boy would have appreciated a bit of honesty. The Beholding is of no practical use, here.

“I want to go home,” Martin repeats, and Elias shakes his head at him. Martin stamps his little foot, which is rather adorable. “I want to go home to my Mum!”

“Martin, this matter has been settled,” Elias tells him. “You’ll be living with me and Peter, in this house. You will be tutored privately until you are ready to choose your own education. You will-”

Martin does not  _ slam _ the book down on Elias’s coffeetable, but it’s large and heavy enough to achieve a similar effect anyway. Martin wheels away from him, scooping the jar with its spider occupant in his arms, and marches himself up to his bedroom. Elias drums his fingers on the arm of the couch, raising his eyes slightly as he calls the Eye into himself.

There is still no sign of Peter. He’s probably been in and out of the Forsaken all day and Elias probably just hasn’t been timing his searches well enough. 

Martin - a terribly conscientious child, even in the midst of a fit of pique - is brushing his teeth, with Mariel in her jar on the bathroom sink. His eyes are red from his crying, and he is snuffling hard around his toothpaste, but he seems to have confined his emotions now to bitter sniffles and a slightly more vicious strength to the motion of his toothbrush. Elias is aware of how other children demonstrate their tantrums. It… prickles at him that Martin would be so reserved at so young an age. 

He is not sure what he wants to See when he looks for Zofia Blackwood. Her only child and only living family has been gone for over a day. He does not know if he would be tempted to return the boy to her, but everything that has been him since he was Jonah wants to know if he  _ will  _ be tempted to do so. He casts his Gaze upon her.

What he Sees is… a woman in crisis, largely. Her father has just been buried, and her son - the child she hadn’t particularly wanted, no, but who she’d been responsible for these last eight years - is missing. The police have already been to her home, asking her questions. Does the child have any friends, anyone whose parents would have taken in a runaway? No, the child has no friends. Does the child’s father stay in regular contact? No, he doesn’t, and he left them recently, saying he hadn’t wanted any of this, and she assumes the child is a part of that. Does she know where the child might have gone? No, she doesn’t. She told him to wait by the side of the car, only a handful of meters away. No one else had driven past, during the funeral. She can’t imagine where the child could or would have gone, or how anyone would have taken him.

The police appear to suspect the father. Elias sneers a little, at that. Zofia Blackwood’s eyes brim with hot, welling tears as she stalks through their small flat. The police had asked her for a recent photograph. The most recent picture she has is over a year old - from the last Christmas before Martin’s father left - and it had been torn in half, pulling Martin’s father out of the image entirely. She’d had to hand the photo over to the police. 

Elias Watches, as she microwaves a ready-meal to take with an array of pills and medications. It’s late for a dinner, though she doesn’t seem to comment on it. She makes herself a cup of tea with shaking hands, nearly dropping the kettle as she pours. She steps back to let it steep, and opens the cabinet door, and pulls out a chipped mug bearing a printed cartoon of van Gogh’s sunflowers on one side. The handle of the mug is painted and shaped like a bent sunflower. Elias prods gently - it had been given to Zofia by her mother, who died just before Martin was born, and she’d rarely used it before Martin had started using it as a big-kid cup for milk and then, in the last several months, for his own tea. Zofia examines the mug in one hand, her lip trembling, tears streaming down her face. 

She then turns and throws it against the wall of her kitchen, and the mug shatters into pieces. 

Elias does not Watch any more. He’s not sure if he’s relieved that nothing in what he Saw pushed him to return Martin. He doesn’t feel what he’d expected to feel. 

Elias prepares for bed himself. There is an ache in his arms and in the center of his chest; he thinks he feels bereft, and wonders how long it will be before Peter ceases this latest silliness and rejoins him. 

Elias sees Martin sit up in his bed, wearing a pair of plain, soft pyjamas and cradling the jar in his lap. He peers under his bed a time or two, and turns to watch the corners of his room. Elias sits up and adjusts the duvet around his waist, so that he looks more like he was freshly awakened rather than staged.

Several minutes later there is a soft knock at the door.

“You can come in,” Elias calls quietly, and Martin creeps into the darkened bedroom.

“S’something in there,” the boy mutters sullenly. “Something scary in the room.”

“Is it an enormous spider?” Elias asks, just to be sure.

“No, she’s still safe,” Martin says, showing him the jar with its singular occupant. Elias does not fetch a sigh at the sight of the spider, and merely gestures Martin come closer.

“What do you suspect in your bedroom, Martin?” he asks, and Martin sniffles and shrugs.

“Something in there.” He does not elaborate. 

Elias watches him for a moment. There’s nothing in Martin’s room, of course. He supposes the weight of the Beholder might fall on anyone who comes close to him, but he doesn’t necessarily think that’s what’s bothering Martin.

“Well,” Elias says. “It’s a bit late to be investigating the presence you detect in your room.”

Martin gazes at him, eyes round in his pale face. Elias would like to be able to understand this child’s mind a little better than he does; he suspects this is a test, and he isn’t sure what it is that’s being tested. 

“Do you want for me to go and personally check the corners and dark places of your bedroom for any intrusion?” he asks, and Martin nods silently. “Very well. I will do this before our breakfast tomorrow. However, it is well past time that you should be fully asleep. Your - ah - Peter isn’t going to be coming home just yet, so. There is plenty of space-”

Elias had, in truth, meant Peter’s room, but he supposes the boy’s assumption is understandable. Elias is a little wary when Martin climbs onto the empty side of Elias’s bed, and even moreso when he notes that Martin has laid the spider jar on its side between them.

“Martin, I think Mariel the spider would prefer if the jar was upright and on a table,” he tries, but Martin tucks the duvet over the jar anyway.

“No,” he whispers. “Mariel’s scared too. She wants to be with me. I know it.”

“Oh, do you?” Elias asks, glancing at the increasingly apologetic house-spider. “Well, if the jar breaks we’ll be cut to ribbons, I suppose.”

“Okay,” Martin says, and rolls over with his head on a stolen pillow. Elias blinks at the back of his head for a moment, before carefully lying down on his side of the spider. 

“Goodnight then, Martin,” Elias offers.

“Night,” Martin mumbles, still stung from earlier.

Martin is asleep within moments. Elias, cycling between glances at his collection of old friends and allies and the places where he can usually find Peter, takes longer to get to sleep, and what dreams he can remember are disquieting.


	4. Revelations 1

It is nearly two days before the little-used rotary phone in the parlor rings. Mary answers it, before sighing deeply and beckoning Martin over to it.

“It’s for you, young man,” she says, and cannot resist giving his newly cut hair a soft pat as she passes him the phone. Elias gives her a quizzical look, and she fixes him with a stare that would make any of the Watcher’s Children proud. “It’s the little girl who visited with her... parents last Christmas. She’s inquiring about the spider.”

“I know,” Elias says, and Mary gives him a very nearly pertinent glance before going back to the kitchen to finish up with their supper. Annabelle is incredibly precocious, especially for one of their kind, but she seems to engage well enough with Martin despite being more than five years his senior. She asks him how Mariel is doing, and he dutifully tells her about the jar with the celery, and reveals that he’s been unsuccessfully looking for insects to feed her. 

Annabelle thanks him for taking such good care of Mariel, and tells him to ask his Dad about feeding Mariel, and asks him to please put his Dad on the phone. Martin hesitates, before asking, very quietly, “You mean Elias, right?”

Annabelle assures him that she does. Martin gives Elias the phone, his little face red as a beet.

“Hello, Miss Annabelle,” Elias says. “Have you made the necessary arrangements to come and take your arachnid companion home?”

Martin curls up in hearing distance, burying his face in a book of poems - Keats again - that he’s read six times now. Elias approves. It lets him read and listen and give the appearance of not-listening.

“Not yet, Mr. Bouchard,” Annabelle says brightly. “But I wanted to tell you that I am available to babysit for you, for when you and Mr. Lukas need some time to yourselves. And also that I can give you some recommendations for a supplier, I think Mariel could eat very small crickets. And you should probably get her a bigger home. It may be some time before I can come get her.”

“I’m sure Martin will be thrilled,” Elias sighs, and Annabelle is too fallow in the ways of her patron to hide her beaming smile from him. “I will make the necessary calls to have one box of crickets sent here, as well as a terrarium. Thank you, Miss Annabelle, is that all?”

“Yes, Mr. Bouchard! Please tell Martin thanks again!” She hangs up, and Elias sighs, putting the phone to one side.

“Annabelle would like me to thank you on her behalf for caring for Mariel,” he says gravely, and Martin sits up, eyes round.

“I like Annabelle,” he offers shyly.

“I know,” Elias says, sighing. “She’s offered to babysit you if needed.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Martin says, blinking. “Big enough to be on my own, see?” He stands up. 

“Well,” Elias says, unable to think of a kind way to refute this. “That being said, you still need help reaching the teacups, and Annabelle is tall for her age. You will get along quite well, should the situation arise.”

“Oh,” Martin says, clambering back onto the couch. Elias watches him curiously - for the most part, he has an idea that children of this age, even well-behaved ones, would be entirely too disruptive to be suffered in a professional setting. Martin, however, seems to be an exception to this rule. It will be a number of days before a suitable tutor is selected for the boy, and Elias has taken more of a vacation than he’d like. He comes to a decision, which he chooses to announce that night over dinner.

“I’d like you to be aware, Martin, that tomorrow morning I will be going in to work,” he says, and Martin nods warily, after tucking one of his spinach leaves into Mariel’s jar. “As we have yet to solidify a plan for your schooling, I have no choice but to have you accompany me to my place of business.”

“Okay,” Martin says.

“I expect you will continue to behave yourself while in my workplace,” Elias adds.

“Okay,” Martin says, blinking slowly at him.

“You will likely have to refrain from touching anything that looks remotely interesting, but you’ll be in my office and it  _ is  _ exceedingly comfortable,” Elias says, and Martin considers this. “Mariel will have to be left here to entertain herself. You should prepare some books that you’d like to read during the day.”

“Tomorrow?” Martin confirms, using his fork to move a bit of beef around on his plate.

“That’s correct,” Elias tells him, and a thought strikes him. “You might meet some of my employees. Will that be agreeable to you?”

“Are any of them kids?” Martin asks hopefully, and Elias shakes his head. “Oh. Well, alright.”

Despite Elias’s assurances that the wretched thing will be completely safe at home in her jar, when the morning comes Martin abjectly refuses to get dressed or part with Mariel until Mary gives him her firm promise that no harm will come to the spider in his absence. She also promises to put the jar next to the radio, so that Mariel may listen to music while Mary’s busy, which seems to cheer Martin back up enough to put on his smart little slacks and pullover and shoes. Martin’s good mood does not last very long; halfway through their commute he starts giving Elias worried little glances when he thinks he’s not being observed. Elias sees no reason for this to continue.

“I’m not angry with you,” he says simply, glancing over, and Martin fidgets. “Why are you worrying over there?”

“I made you late for work,” Martin says miserably, after looking fretfully at the driver to see if he can be heard. “And, and I was silly.”

“You were a little bit silly,” Elias concedes, before reaching over and giving Martin’s tousled curls a single pat. “While I prefer to be punctual in all things, you know, sometimes the situation calls for a touch of flexibility. With the traffic as it is, I expect it won’t have truly made us more than a few minutes later than our original expected arrival. It doesn’t hurt anyone if we’re just a little bit late, just today. However, I will expect from this point on that you do your best not to delay our mornings further.”

“Okay, Elias,” Martin says, watching him curiously. “Elias? How do you know about the traffic?”

_ Ah, _ Elias thinks.  _ The time has come. _

“Well,” Elias says brightly. “I Know everything. I can See anything that can be Seen, through living eyes as well as through the eyes of graven images - drawings and photographs and statuary and whatnot. Theoretically, I could have Seen through the eyes of every person who is engaged in the traffic in question. However, I merely Looked through the eyes of the traffic reporter who is about to announce it on the radio.”

“Does it hurt?” Martin asks, frowning. 

“No, he hardly even noticed-” Elias starts, and Martin shakes his head.

“No, does, does it hurt you, to look through a bunch of things at one time?” Martin clarifies, worrying at the bottom hem of his jumper. Elias regards him for a moment, until he squirms in his seat and starts picking at the strap of his seatbelt in mortified silence.

“It doesn’t hurt me  _ very  _ badly,” Elias says finally. “And I’m quite used to it. Just a little headache, Martin.”

“I don’t think you should do that,” Martin says quietly. “If it hurts you, and makes your head hurt. Please don’t do something that hurts you.”

“I shall take your advice into consideration,” Elias says, for lack of anything else to say to such a ridiculous request. The boy does perk up a little, as if he actually agreed not to use the Watcher’s Gaze in such a manner. Elias clears his throat, a nervous tension rolling through him and shaking out through his wrists and knees. “You don’t seem to be too concerned with the fact that I know everything. Do you have any… other questions?”

“What’s Mariel looking at?” Martin asks, eyes wide.

“Mary, through the glass of her jar,” Elias guesses. Mariel belongs too fully to Annabelle for him to be able to See through her eyes. 

“What’s Mary looking at?” Martin asks, bouncing a little in his seat.

“The dishes from breakfast,” Elias says, then, leaning forward, “but we won’t tell her that I Saw through her eyes today, Martin, because she’s asked me not to do that.”

“Oh!” Martin gives him a surprised little frown. “Then you oughtn’t have? She said not to.”

“Hm,” Elias says, leaning back. The revelation seems to be going well, at least. “Any other questions?”

“Can you see what I’m looking at?” Martin asks shyly, and Elias gives him a brief, puzzled smile.

“You’re looking at me, Martin, I don’t have to See through you to know that,” he says gently, and Martin shakes his head.

“No, no, like, later, when I’m somewhere else,” he says brightly. “Is it like telepathy?”

“Not entirely, though I suppose I’ve been accused of mind-reading in the past,” Elias says, eyebrows raised. “I could See what you’re seeing when you’re elsewhere. How do you know about telepathy?”

“There’s telepathy in Animorphs,” Martin says proudly. “It’s how the Animorphs talk to one another when they’re shapeshifted into animals that can’t talk.” 

“Ah, this is another of your books,” Elias says, and Martin nods. “Very well. You read quite a lot, Martin.”

“I like reading,” Martin agrees, looking out the window. “What do you do for a job if you can read minds?”

“I oversee the Magnus Institute, which is a research facility dedicated to collecting and notating personal accounts of the supernatural,” Elias tells him. Martin looks at him, chewing on one of his fingers. “I’m the boss. Take your finger out of your mouth, Martin.”

“Okay,” Martin says, and does not obey. “So does anybody else at your job do mind-reading?”

“Perhaps a little bit, but mostly not,” Elias says. “Your finger’s still in your mouth.”

“Oh,” Martin says, taking it out for a few seconds before putting it back in. “Does mind-reading make you better at being a boss?”

“I suspect not,” Elias says, watching him nibble at his fingernail. That can’t possibly be good for him. “It helped me when I needed to learn advanced accounting skills and didn’t have the time or the inclination to go to a school for it.”

“Accounting is math?” Martin asks.

“Accounting is indeed math,” Elias confirms. Martin nods.

“I’m bad at math,” he announces, without any sort of evidence to prove his position on the matter. The car slows and then comes to a stop at the entrance to the Institute.

“Well, we’ll have to see about that. Come along, Martin,” Elias commands, and Martin struggles a bit until Elias reaches over to assist him with his seatbelt. Martin’s exit through Elias’s door includes an amount of wriggling, and a cheerful farewell to the driver, before he finally makes his way onto the pavement. Elias hands him his little knapsack - packed with a notebook and some pencils and no less than four books. Elias worries it might be a bit heavy for the boy, but Martin shrugs it on and takes his hand.

Elias realizes his mistake several seconds after they cross the threshold into the Institute. Mathilde at the lobby desk takes one look at the two of them and her eyes widen with something like deep alarm, followed immediately by confusion.

“Hello! I’m Martin,” Martin chirps politely. This does nothing to lessen Mathilde’s alarm.

“H-hello,” Mathilde says, eyes darting between Martin and Elias. “Ah, Mr. Bouchard, who’s… the little one?”

“This is Martin,” Elias says stiffly, intensely aware of the thought running through her head that Elias Bouchard must have fathered - and possibly abandoned - a child in university if Martin is his, and that it’s equally likely that Martin isn’t his and that some foolish relative has temporarily dumped an innocent child on London’s worst babysitter. The Elias he once was offers no comment; he’d never had the chance to meet any children as an adult, and couldn’t have guessed where Mathilde’s reaction comes from.

“Martin and I will be spending the day in my office,” Elias announces, and Mathilde actually winces at him.

“Oh-” she says, and he Sees the note on her desk before she has a chance to speak again. “Mr. Fairchild and Mr. Rayner called ahead, sir? There was some sort of-”

“-schedule conflict,” Elias sighs.

“-yes, sir, and they’re coming in to meet with you today instead of Thursday,” she finishes, giving Martin a wretched glance. She does not, under any circumstances, want to spend any part of the day caring for a child, and fully expects that as the first woman Elias sees today that the responsibility will fall on her shoulders. Elias sighs.

“Well, when will they be here?” he asks, and she winces again.

“In… twenty minutes, sir.”

“Hm.” Elias releases Martin’s hand to straighten his tie, sighing. “Martin, I will be taking you to one of my employees for the time being, and once my meeting has ended I will come fetch you for lunch. Understood?”

“Okay, Elias,” Martin says cautiously, and Elias rewards him with another singular pat to the head. 

“Alright. And you’ll continue to be on your best behavior for my employee?” he prompts, and Martin nods immediately. Elias gives a satisfied nod, before turning and giving Mathilde a searching glance. “Mathilde, are any of the departments shortstaffed today?”

“Well, both Research departments are, and technically the Library isn’t but they’re working out of boxes while cleanup continues in the Library itself,” Mathilde says, frowning. “Artefact Storage has all hands on deck, as well as the Archives. Only, well, you don’t want to put a child in Artefact Storage, do you, sir?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Elias says, grimacing slightly at the idea of any of the misbegotten artefacts laying so much as a whisper of another patron’s mark on the boy. No, best to keep him steeped in the Watcher’s Gaze, for now. “I’ll take him down to the Archives.”

“Are you sure?” Mathilde presses, even though she hates the idea of babysitting him herself. “It’s just, ah, Ms. Robinson isn’t really the… children type. If you catch my meaning.”

“Ms. Robinson can delegate, then,” Elias snaps, releasing a sigh at Mathilde’s chastened expression. At his side, Martin looks even more worried than before. “My apologies, Mathilde, it’s just-”

“Your first meeting with two of the big donors?” she supplies, giving him a sympathetic look. “Anyone would be nervous, Mr. Bouchard, even without having a kid to look after as well. That’s alright.”

“Alright,” Elias echoes, then clears his throat. “Alright. Thank you for your understanding.”

He reaches out his hand, and Martin takes it. While the stairwell down to the Archives is relatively close, Elias elects to use the lift, mostly to give himself time to sift through the eyes of the Archival Assistants. It’s unfortunate that Eric isn’t there anymore; he was a family man and would have been very comfortable dealing with Martin for a morning. Emma’s at Gertrude’s side in the office, looking over some documents - and she’s also a touch difficult to See through, which is interesting but not of great use to him right this moment. Fiona’s upstairs, doing something mildly interesting with a bunch of architectural drawings, which leaves… ah.

Elias leads Martin into the Archival Assistants’ offices, and opens the door to Michael Shelley’s little broom closet of an office without knocking, startling the man into overturning his cup of pens all over his paper-strewn desk.

“O-oh, hello,” Michael says breathlessly, standing up and peering down at Elias and Martin. “What, ah, what can I do for you, Mr. Bouchard?”

“Michael,” Elias says firmly. “This is my son, Martin. I have a sudden meeting with two of our investors-”

“You have a what?” Michael asks, eyes round. “Oh, you do look a bit alike, don’t you?”

“And I need you to watch him for a couple of hours until I come down to take him back to my office,” Elias finishes sternly. “I know you haven’t been assigned anything to work on yet, so I’m going to pop in and let Gertrude know that you’ll be busy working on something for me.”

“Oh, um, alright,” Michael says weakly, reaching out with one bony hand. “Hello, Martin. I’m, ah, Michael.”

Martin shakes his hand, and after a moment Michael clambers around until he produces a folding chair from behind a shelf and sets it up in the corner. Elias releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as Martin gives his waist a squeeze before sitting down on the chair and opening up his bag to find a book.

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Bouchard,” Michael says nervously, attempting a smile. “I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on him!”

“Yes, and I’ll be sure to do the same,” Elias says, perhaps a little more coldly than he intends, because Michael flinches slightly before going back to his seat and picking up his pens. “I’ll see you later, Martin.”

“Oh! Yes,” Martin says, beaming and giving Elias a torturously exaggerated wink. “You’ll  _ See _ me later. Yes.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Elias sighs, giving him a small wave before exiting the office and shutting Michael’s door behind him before the poor young man can ask either of them what they mean by it. He’s tempted to just forgo alerting Gertrude to Martin’s presence, but the thought of her coming upon him unawares and being startling at him seems like more trouble than just avoiding the topic entirely. He gives her the courtesy of a knock at her door before he opens it.

“Knock knock,” he says, poking his head in. Emma and Gertrude give him twin looks of mild, barely-disguised irritation. “Just giving you a quick “heads up,” as it were. Michael Shelley will be indisposed for the rest of the morning.”

“What? Why?” Emma asks. Gertrude’s eyes are already narrowing; she must have caught some of the situation through her connection to the Beholding.

“My son, Martin, is in his office for the next few hours,” Elias explains. He ignores Emma’s visible outrage, though he’s not sure how he feels about the disinterest writ in every line of Gertrude’s expression. “I’ve got a meeting and will be down to take him back as soon as it’s over with. He’s a well-behaved child and I do not expect him to cause any trouble whatsoever.”

“Yes,” Gertrude says quickly, putting up a hand to silence Emma despite the fact that she’s merely quivering in furious silence. “Well, I’m sure there’s some quiet paperwork I can have him do instead of making follow-up calls. Is that all, Elias?”

“I’m sure you’ll have a grand and productive morning together,” Elias says briskly. “Good day to you both.”

He bites back the urge to double back and give Martin another admonition to be on his very best behavior, instead heading to the lift and devoting his Sight to checking in on Simon and Maxwell, who are both already in the lobby and heading for the stairwell together. He’s only got about five minutes or so before they expect to be shown into his office. 

Elias sighs and straightens his tie again. They’ve both known him longer than anyone else in this world, and he suspects they will both be insufferable when -  _ if _ they find out about Martin. The Elias he used to be agrees, very quietly. He decides not to bring it up to either of them, just for today. It’s complicated enough having Peter and Annabelle aware of such things.

He casts a single Eye into Michael’s office, through the eyes on the “Garfield” poster tacked to one wall. Martin’s book is closed, and he is asking Michael why he’s so tall. 

Well. That’s innocuous enough. Elias lets it go for now, the elevator doors opening just in time for his oldest friends to come into view at the top of the stairwell at the end of the hallway.

“Running late, are we?” Simon asks merrily. 

“Just had to pop into the Archives for a moment,” Elias says, truthfully enough. He unlocks his office door and ushers them in. “Good morning, gentlemen.” 


	5. Revelations 2

The meeting is quite nearly a success - Simon and Maxwell both have quite a lot of interesting updates regarding their ideas about expanding into a more scientific line of inquiry, and they certainly have the funds necessary to both support it  _ and  _ keep the Institute in lights and payroll for the next few years. The entire thing is relatively simple and to the point, despite the fact that they tend to want to reminisce about the old days and argue about the new days whenever they pair up. Elias would almost consider it a successful, entanglement-free interaction if it wasn’t for the way Simon cocks his head to one side and puts his chin on one hand, eyes twinkling.

“Now that we’ve got the business out of the way,” he says, and Elias sighs a little. “How is your young man taking your… situation?”

“If you’re referring to Peter-” Elias starts, and Maxwell wags a hand at him.

“Of course we mean Peter! We were just talking to Nathaniel this week, you know, he seems quite shocked that his nephew’s leapt into a - what did he call it, Simon?”

“A  _ new relationship  _ is what he called it,” Simon says, relishing the phrase. “It was one thing to dally with the boy when you were James, wasn’t it? Him being a youngster and all-”

“He’s in his forties, he’s not what anyone would call a boy,” Elias mutters, more to himself than to the two of them. They’ve found ways to gang up on him ever since they knew him as a wild-hearted teenager in Edinburgh, and this has the distinct feel of one of their games. “If we don’t have anything else to urgently discuss, we really ought to schedule our next meeting.”

“But then! Elias, you feral young thing, you,” Simon continues mercilessly. “You kept him on! I’ve never seen you do anything of the sort, you know, I’m not entirely sure that any of your other gentlemen ever got to know that you just kept  _ going  _ after swapping out for the newest model. I have to ask-”

“You truly don’t,” Elias says wearily, massaging the bridge of his nose.

“-well, I shall anyway,” Simon tells him with the confidence of a man with five centuries of troublemaking under his belt. “He really is a singular young man, so I must ask, now: has our Peter finally made an honest man of you?”

“We realize,” Maxwell breaks in, “that it would take more than a committed relationship to introduce a notion such as honesty into that skull of yours, of course, but we’d like to know if such a thing is going on between the two of you, or if he knows that you’re the same person he was so madly in love with the past decade or so.”

“He knows that I was James before, and that the person he knew as James has become Elias,” Elias says stiffly, gesturing at himself and refusing to address the  _ madly in love  _ jab. “We’re both adults who lead separate lives, of course.”

“Of course,” Maxwell says, leering a little in Elias’s direction. “But you’ve opened yourself up to him more than you’ve opened up to anyone since the old days, haven’t you?”

“If you have a reason for asking me about this beyond your insatiable interest in my personal life,” Elias suggests, frowning at the pair of horrible old men before him, “then I should like to hear it. Otherwise, I really must-”

“Dear boy, we want you to talk to him, that’s all,” Simon says smoothly, although he looks absolutely devious with glee. “This enterprise between Maxwell’s family and mine, we really think there’s  _ so  _ much more that could be done with it if we had another source of funding, and, well! Who’s lonelier than a rocketman, I ask you?”

After a beat, Elias is compelled to ask, “Are you referring to the song?”

“A bit, darling, but really,” Simon admits. “I think it’d be a wonderful opportunity for the Lukas family to be a part of our space adventure, and it would give us the framework to collaborate on future projects that might help us equally. Only you know Nathaniel told us he wouldn’t, Elias, he’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t he?”

“So you want me to ask Peter to convince Nathaniel to agree to your little… space adventure,” Elias sighs. “Well, I suppose I can ask him when I see him again, but he hasn’t been staying at mine so it will have to wait until he’s back in London-”

Maxwell sits straight up, his unseeing eyes wide. Elias stifles the urge to sigh again; Maxwell has always loved stirring the pot when it comes to upsetting interpersonal drama, and it appears he hasn’t grown out of that trait.

“Why, Elias, you poor thing,” he grates out, too happy to share the news. “According to Nathaniel Peter’s been in London the past few months now! Surely you Knew that?”

“Gentlemen,” Elias replies, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “I’ll do my best to sway Peter to your way of thinking, but I really do have other meetings to attend to.”

“Who with?” Simon asks, even as he helps Maxwell to his feet and loops an arm through his. “Surely not with Orsinov, the man’s been busy with that baby of his, hasn’t he?”

“I don’t think it’s a baby, no,” Maxwell offers. “You’re not meeting with Gregor and his terrible baby-thing, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” Elias tells them, ushering them toward the door. “I think he put that project aside for now, at any rate. No, I have Institute business to take care of, so-”

“You’re really no fun at all as Elias, aren’t you?” Simon sighs, and at his side Maxwell grumbles an agreement. “Well, we’ll be in for our regular next month, then.”

“Alright, give Mathilde a call when you want to set it up,” Elias agrees, watching the two of them shuffle into the lift and holding his breath until he sees the doors slide shut. He lets it out in a gusty noise once he’s back in his comfortable desk chair, finally diverting his attention back to Martin and Michael. 

The act presents Elias with a moment of difficulty. The Garfield in Michael’s tiny office does not bear any evidence of the two, but the eye pattern laid into the crown molding in every room of the Archives reveals the two of them sitting on the floor beside Michael’s desk, and there is panic writ all along the soft edges of Michael’s round face, and there are tears streaming down Martin’s even rounder face. 

Elias is out of his office and dashing for the stairwell before he can give himself a reason why doing so is in the service of the Eye. 

He ventures a glance through Michael’s gaze, for just long enough to hear Martin sniffle miserably and ask, “What if he never does?” 

And he hears Michael stammer through a few syllables, before seeing him gingerly place a hand on top of Martin’s head. “W-well, I’m sure he’ll come back, he’s only just upstairs, you know?”

Elias takes the steps two and three at a time, blindingly grateful for Elias Bouchard’s twenty-nine-year-old knee joints. He’s not quite fast enough; he’s only just reached the ground floor when Martin explains through his tears that he means _ the other one, Peter. _ He can’t get to Michael’s office before Michael tentatively asks who Peter is, and he doesn’t bother trying to straighten his hair or tie before he wrestles the office door open, panting.

“Ah,” he wheezes, two sets of concerned, redrimmed eyes peering at him over the top edge of Michael’s desk. “My meeting’s just ended.”

“O-oh, has - has it?” Michael squeaks. Martin stands up, looking guilty. “W-well, I suppose, ah, you must be wanting your… son back for lunch?”

His nervous laugh ends with a sort of deflating half-sob as he gets to his feet, frantically gathering up the bits of paper where he had apparently been drawing pictures of… cats, mostly.

“Yes, Martin, what would you like for lunch?” Elias asks, and Martin twists his little hands in front of his stomach, looking up at Elias with the clear intention of beaming information directly into Elias’s mind. Elias does attempt a Glance into his thoughts, but it’s just another confusing muddle of childish affection and confusion, so there’s no answer to be found there. “Martin, I believe I explained earlier that I don’t possess the ability to hear your thoughts. Please use your words.”

“Can it be pizza?” Martin asks wetly, and Elias nods briskly. “Can Mr. Michael come too?”

The employee in question almost drops his armful of cat drawings

“Well, I’m not sure,” Elias begins, and Martin bristles visibly, as if a child of eight could hope to litigate the matter with an adult. Elias glances over at Michael, who doesn’t seem to want to look Elias in the eye and seems deeply nervous about the prospect of spending a luncheon with his employer. Elias supposes he may as well discover what, exactly, Michael knows about the situation before he decides what to do about it. “If Mr. Shelley here would like to have pizza for lunch with us, I’m sure it would be a mutually enjoyable experience for all three of us.”

“Oh, I, well, that-” Michael tries, and Elias gestures for Martin to sit in the chair to wait. 

“Splendid. I’ll be back in a moment or two, I’ll just let Ms. Robinson know I’ll be taking you from the office for a spell,” he says, stepping back out and neatly shutting the door again. Elias gives his hair a few rather hopeless passes at being straight and neat, and has a bit of better luck with his tie before he moves on and pokes his head into the Head Archivist’s office. “Knock knock again.”

“Mr. Bouchard, I must protest these incessant interruptions,” Gertrude snaps, which he really does think is unfair of her. 

“Last one for the day, Gertrude,” he promises. “Michael Shelley will be accompanying me off-campus for a bit. Please direct any complaints about his workload today to my office.”

She doesn’t try to argue that the eighteen-year-old is vital to a standard workday, though he can see her file this away behind the thick wire-rimmed glasses she wears. To be honest, he rather expects more resistance, considering how coolly she’s treated him since he became Elias. He remembers her being much more polite and (perhaps reluctantly) fond of him when he was James, and the change is something of an irritation. 

No matter. Elias has nothing standing in his way now, so he returns to young Michael’s office, where Martin is studiously packing his bag and Michael is weakly attempting to reconfigure his stationery in what he must assume is a professional-looking arrangement. Martin is beaming up at the tall young man, though when he spots Elias he comes at him in a run, colliding with his stomach in what is clearly another hug. 

Elias gives his head and shoulders a series of tiny pats, before gesturing at Michael.

“Come along. We’ll have my driver take us somewhere for pizza.” 

Michael Shelley is visibly nervous as they leave the building, vibrating with anxiety as the three of them stand on the pavement waiting for the car to pull up. He’s only a bit easier to See inside of than Martin is - old enough to have more clarity in his thoughts, it’s true, but barely out of childhood himself and touched, featherlight but tangible, by the Spiral in his childhood. He’s mostly convinced that he’s about to be fired, and that he’ll never know what happened to Ryan, whoever that is. Elias allows himself a moment of pity, simply because there’s no reason to think that working at the Institute would have given Michael any closure in the matter, either.

As soon as the driver pulls to a stop Elias opens the door and herds the two others into the backseat before climbing in himself. There are a few seconds of heavy silence before Martin clears his throat with an important little smile on his well-turned little face.

“Did you know tomato is a type of fruit,” he offers. Michael blinks.

“I think we both knew that, didn’t we, Michael?” Elias prompts, and the young man nods quickly. Martin gives his arm a soft little pat.

“Michael is my best friend,” he says, rather touchingly. Michael seems to be somewhat conflicted over it, and while Elias does think knowing a man for three hours isn’t enough to declare bosom friendship he’s mildly relieved to hear it.

“Ah, so he’s replaced Mariel, has he?” Elias asks quickly, and Martin gives him a tiny frown.

“Michael is my best human friend, and Mariel is my best spider friend,” he corrects. Martin sniffs a bit. 

“I should think Mariel is your pet, really,” Elias tries. Martin looks mildly affronted.

“She’s not  _ my  _ pet, because she’s Miss Annabelle’s pet.”

“What kind of spider?” Michael asks tentatively, and Martin bounces a little in his seat.

“Big and soft and brown,” he explains. Elias tries not to let his disappointment show. “I found her in my room because a nice girl told her to come see us.”

“Ah?” Michael looks at Elias for clarification. 

“Mariel is a common house spider, she’s just a bit on the large side,” Elias explains. “We’re caring for her temporarily.”

“Ah.” 

Elias considers asking Michael to name the source of his anxiety, but they’re only another minute away from the nearest Italian restaurant that serves pizza during its lunch hours, so he elects to allow the rest of the drive to pass in awkward silence. Martin doesn’t seem to be affected by the tension in the car at all; he is wiggling a bit in his seat, shooting the two of them hopeful glances here and there. 

Martin’s hand is warm in Elias’s grip as they wait to be seated, and he is only released when the waitstaff brings them to a table, because Martin needs both hands to clamber into his chair. The waiter considers asking if Martin would like a booster seat, but thankfully, he elects against mentioning it. There are no children menus to be had, but Elias reassures the waiter that Martin will be choosing from the adult menu.

“So,” Michael starts, once the waiter has lowered glasses of water in front of them and taken their drink orders. “I-I didn’t know that you had a son, Mr. Bouchard?”

“I know,” Elias replies neutrally, ignoring Martin’s attempt at a covert wink over the top of his menu. Michael is working himself up to ask his next question, taking a quick sip of his water before he does so. Elias waits, since it could be any one of several that Michael’s had flittering about his thoughts since they were in his office.

“I didn’t know you were… married?” he asks finally, and Elias glances over at Martin, who… well, who seems to have made an assumption or two.

“Not quite,” Elias says, and then, because it’s the root of the question that was asked, he adds, “but there  _ is  _ someone I would like to be married to if it were feasible. His name is Peter. Martin and I are very fond of him.” 

Martin nods, though he doesn’t seem as convinced of his fondness for Peter quite yet. It’s Peter’s own fault for leaving them so quickly; Elias tries to feel more than a single stab of triumph at truly being Martin’s favorite and instead feels only quietly weary. 

He glances at Michael, and sees what he expected to see: the gentle, almost subliminal relaxing of every muscle, the visible recognition and relief. He remembers being Michael’s age and relaxing, ever so faintly, when he spoke to his new friends and saw pieces of himself in them. He remembers that rush of nameless gratitude, at learning that  _ he wasn’t the only one _ . 

Elias gives Michael a small smile. “I trust that you’ll be discreet for our sakes, won’t you?”

And oh, how the teenager before him swells with pride, at being trusted with information bestowed only to a few. How easy it would be, to twist the boy’s delight at being trusted into the boy’s trust itself! How easy it would be, to sharpen him into a willing tool, to stoke and starve and feed him in turns, until he’d do anything at all for the sake of that trust. 

Martin lowers his menu, giving Michael a hopeful smile. “Discreet means like it’s a secret.”

“Ah, yes,” Michael says, giving the boy an unsteady little smile in return. Martin nearly glows at the attention. “I am very good at keeping secrets, actually! I promise to keep yours, very carefully. D-don’t worry, Mr. Bouchard,” he adds, looking over at Elias. “I-I’m not - I wouldn’t say anything about it.”

“I Know,” Elias tells him, and oh, how fond his little Martin is of this man already. Elias consults with the Beholding; there is nothing within its Sight that suggests that bringing young Michael further into his confidence would be a mistake, and furthermore, Elias thinks the events of this morning do indicate that he ought to have more of a support staff. He clears his throat. “Michael, do you enjoy working in the Archives?”

“W-well, it’s only been a couple of months, s-sir,” Michael says, alarmed. “I-I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon, though?”

“Ah, I didn’t mean to cause you distress, Michael. My apologies. I’m not going to fire you,” Elias explains, and Michael sags back in his chair a little. “No, I… I couldn’t help but notice that you have been remarkably successful at keeping Martin behaved and entertained this morning.”

“Well, yeah, it’s - it’s not so hard to make a kid happy, is it?” Michael says, deflecting the praise with his shoulders up around his ears. And perhaps it isn’t terribly difficult at all, but he makes Martin happy. Elias suspects he’s beginning to understand Martin’s feelings towards Mariel; he’s never really had a pet, in all of his lifetimes, but perhaps this can be the start of learning to appreciate their uses. 

“It can be a difficult task,” Elias says, and the waiter returns and asks them if they know what they’d like yet. Martin requests a cheese pizza with olives; Michael, after a moment of flustered hedging, requests the same. Martin gives Elias a pointed little glare before he can tell the waiter that he won’t need to eat anything. There truly isn’t any reason to stoke the boy’s ire over a single meal, and it’s not like this body  _ doesn’t _ need to eat. Elias opts for a caprese salad and requests an order of bruschetta to be sent to the table ahead of the pizzas.

“Is our figgy brie toast basically the same as pizza?” Martin asks, as soon as the waiter has left them.

“Well, it’s cheese over a fruit jam on a bread, so… yes, I suppose it is a type of pizza,” Elias says, after a moment. “Though I don’t know if Mary would agree.”

“I will ask her,” Martin declares. Michael is still flustered and nervous between them, and Elias decides not to keep him on tenterhooks any longer than he has to.

“Well, Michael, the thing is, I’ve recently come to the realization that I’m in need of a proper executive assistant,” Elias says smoothly, without any indication that the realization occurred within the last few minutes. “Someone to help run my affairs smoothly, and assist with caring for Martin on those occasions when I must bring him with me on Institute business. You’ve been operating within more of a secretarial role within the Archives and have no academic background in archival practices, correct? I’d like to propose a lateral move for you. There is a very slight pay increase, but more importantly, there’d be room for career advancement.”

There is no such thing, of course, because Michael is unsuited to being a replacement for Elias. That’s not really something Michael needs to know, though - the change in him is remarkable, shocked confusion giving way to happy confusion.

“Wait, you - y-you mean that? A, a promotion?” he squeaks out, and Martin claps at him. 

“Of course,” Elias says, giving Martin a warm look before returning his gaze to Michael. “It will mean an increase in your responsibilities, and you’ll be handling matters of a sensitive, personal nature to me and my family, but I’m certain you will be up to the task.”

Michael is perfectly speechless until the waiter comes by with the bruschetta; Elias takes a moment to busy himself with deciding what, exactly, those tasks will entail. 

He can’t help but think that this will certainly be of service to the Eye, as well. If he brings Michael more into his confidence and influence as one of the Watcher’s Children - which he certainly must, at some point, if just to stamp out the Spiral’s influence on him - then that will be one more loyal servant and devotee. 

And Martin likes him. Elias can’t think of any reasons not to do it, but if he thinks of any later he’ll be able to rebut them with that simple fact. Martin likes him, and Elias has already decided to amass a collection of all the things Martin likes in order to be sure of Martin’s continued affection and loyalty and happiness. Elias wants Martin to be happy, and this is a relatively simple way to do it, at least in the short term.

Elias supposes if that ever changes, well, he’ll dispose of Michael  _ somehow  _ then, but that is a problem for the Elias that will exist in that future time.

Elias waits until they’ve finished their lunch and made their way back to the Institute - parting ways with Michael in the lobby to allow him to pack up his office - and sits Martin down on one of the more comfortable chairs in his private office before he clears his throat to address the lad.

“You’ll be seeing much more of Michael, I think,” he says, and Martin makes a delightful little noise at this announcement. “Especially while we’re waiting to get a private tutor arranged properly. I’m very pleased with your behavior today, you know.”

“Oh!” Martin hugs his backpack to his chest, grinning bashfully. “I-I want to be good.”

“You were successfully very good,” Elias agrees, sitting down in his own chair. “We’ll be here for a bit longer today, but I trust you will ask me if you need any assistance. The toilet is located behind that door,” he adds, pointing out a door in the corner to his private restroom.

“Okay,” Martin agrees easily enough. It’s a restful afternoon, especially compared to the way the morning went-

-and just before four-thirty, Elias’s office phone receives a call. He Knows it’s Mary before he picks up.

“Are you in danger?” he asks, which does attract Martin’s attention over his book. Observant little watchling that he is.

“No, Mr. Bouchard,” Mary says tersely. “But I wanted to give you a bit of a warning that I will have to be leaving early, on account of the unnatural fog billowing down the stairwell. Your gentleman doesn’t seem to be here  _ quite  _ yet, but-”

“Your safety is paramount, Mary,” Elias sighs. “Naturally. I’m sure he’ll be quite embarrassed to realize his carelessness when he is more himself. Thank you for giving me advance notice. Go stay the night with your sister and her family, we’ll do well enough on our own and you’ll be better off surrounded by your loved ones.”

“Of course, Mr. Bouchard. This isn’t my first time down this particular street, is it?” she asks, before adding with a bit of a stern tone, “and you won’t be allowing young Martin to sleep in such a mess, will you?”

“Martin won’t be alone in the Fog, Mary,” Elias sighs. “He won’t be leaving my side, I promise.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The spider seems unaffected. I shall keep you updated on my health,” she replies, before disconnecting the line. He is sure to Watch her intently as she packs up her things, just to be certain - and she must feel the weight of his Gaze, because she gives a comforting pat to the top of a small bronze bust of Jonah Magnus which is resting on a plinth in the study, quite a bit out of her way. The Fog does cling to her shoes a bit, but only a bit, and by the time she’s stepping onto the pavement outside she’s largely clear of it.

Still, he keeps his attention on her until she reaches the entrance to a Tube station. He only releases her after Mary stops abruptly and spends over thirty seconds making direct, unsettling eye contact with a poster for a film that was released several months ago. He supposes she’s earned the right to her own privacy, and she doesn’t seem to be in any lingering danger from the Forsaken.

Still. Elias has been wrong about the reach of the Forsaken before, in a previous lifetime.

“Was that Miss Mary on the phone?” Martin asks, nibbling his lower lip.

“It was,” Elias says, packing up his briefcase. “You and I will be going home early. We will be ordering food from a local eatery for our dinner, unless you feel an urge to attempt a cooking experiment with me. Mary had to leave, because-”

Martin’s eyes are very wide, and - and Elias doesn’t want to get his hopes up about Peter, because what if Peter’s just going to do that hideous thing he does where he pops in only for long enough to decide he needs a few more weeks or days to himself? 

“-because she isn’t feeling very well,” he says, avoiding a lie on a technicality. “It may be several days before she feels well enough to come in to work again, but you and I will keep our spaces neat so that she isn’t faced with too much of a mess when she gets back to us, alright?”

“Alright,” Martin says, putting his book away. “I’ll make her a get well card.”

“I’m sure she will appreciate it,” Elias says gravely; it’s not quite five by the time they’re passing Mathilde’s desk in the lobby, but he doesn’t think spending any additional time trying to pursue his work will be at all productive. 

Martin’s hand fits very naturally in his own hand, and it’s very easy to keep hold of him after they exit the car and step onto the pavement in front of the house. There’s no fog seeping from the door or the windows, which is definitely a good sign in terms of it being safe for Mary to return soon. Elias gives Martin’s hand a little tug to get the boy’s attention.

“I want you to stay nearby tonight,” he explains. “Close as you can. And you must tell me immediately if you begin to feel distressed, do you understand?”

“Like sad?” Martin asks, blinking.

“Yes,” Elias sighs. “Just in case.”

“Alright, Elias,” Martin agrees dutifully. There is no fog inside the foyer or study, at least. The radio in the kitchen doesn’t even sound the least bit muffled; Martin tugs Elias along to the kitchen so that he might be reunited with his dreadful second-best-friend. 

It doesn’t occur to Elias to Look ahead of them, because he cannot imagine that Peter would suffer the continued late-seventies pop music that’s currently playing. He is willing to accept a portion of the blame for Martin’s quiet unease as the two of them freeze in the doorway.

Peter looks at the jar for a moment or two more, before setting Mariel back down on the countertop next to the radio. He turns and looks at the two of them, his pale eyes dropping to their joined hands, and the smile on his face is terribly blank, even for him.

“You two seem to be getting along without me,” he says cheerfully. “Is this little creature yours, Martin?”

“Y-yes,” Martin says, letting go of Elias to dart forward and snatch the jar up in his arms. Mariel skitters in her jar and presses her body against the side resting against the front of Martin’s pullover. Elias notices that there is just the very faintest beginning of frost forming on the glass. “She’s Mariel.”

“Ah, you’ve made yourself a friend,” Peter says, his voice light with that same dreadfully false cheer. Martin backs away from him, eyes on the floor. 

“Peter-” Elias says; within and all though him, the Beholding bursts like starlight through his veins, and he Knows it will happen before he shouts, “-close the door on the Forsaken, Peter,  _ now, _ Martin, come back-”

He’s so quick, for such a small child. He darts out of the kitchen and Elias  _ hears _ him run up the stairs to his room, even as Elias turns and points a panicked finger in Peter’s direction. “Don’t let him in the Fog, Peter,  _ shut the damn door-” _

Martin’s bedroom door slams shut, and Elias gives up on trying to reason with Peter’s dumbfounded numbness. He dashes up the stairs, the Watcher screaming down his spine now, and he knows he won’t see Martin when he kicks the door open and rushes in. There is no little boy in the en suite. There is no little boy in the closet. There is no little boy underneath the massive bed. 

“Elias-” Peter whispers from the doorway. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to, I-”

Elias turns, his bones threatening to shatter against the meat of him. “Let me get him, he’s too small, let me get him, Peter, he’s mine, let me get him, I-”

“It might kill you,” Peter says, and Elias feels like he might be ready to throw the man he loves back down the stairwell.

“It will do no such thing,” Elias says, instead of a thousand cutting things that spring to mind. “I will not allow it. Let me in to get him back,  _ now. _ ”

“You can’t,” Peter begins, sucking in a breath, and he’s a big man, and faster than he looks. He catches Elias’s fists before they can connect. “You can’t. Not alone. I… I will have to go with you.” 

He doesn’t bother waiting for Elias to respond. The house around them changes and fills with stifling grey. The pain is immediate; Elias chooses to ignore it. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, eyes lowered.

“Help me find him. That is all,” Elias commands. He nods once before they step out into the Fog.


End file.
